


Flash Forward

by Switch_Statement



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Blood and Violence, Chaos Emeralds, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Dark, Dubious Science, Dystopia, Far Future, Gen, Horror, Post-Apocalypse, Saving the World
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28845744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Switch_Statement/pseuds/Switch_Statement
Summary: Through events he can't explain, Sonic is warped to a horrific future, where Silver is the last beacon of hope remaining against eldritch abominations that have overrun most of Mobius. However, Sonic isn't content to merely survive. He's determined to end this nightmare once and for all, but unfortunately for him, all determination comes at a price.
Kudos: 3





	1. Sound the Alarm

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Notes:
> 
> -Thank you for deciding to give this story a shot. Every reader means a lot to me.
> 
> -This story will be set where Sonic '06 would have been in the timeline, had it been canon (meaning post-Shadow the Hedgehog, pre-Sonic Unleashed). No, that doesn't mean this will be a Sonic '06 rewrite, but that won't stop me from pulling a few elements from it. Most notably, Silver will be one of the main characters.
> 
> -Thoughts will be italicized quotes. "They'll look like this."
> 
> -Just about everything else you'll need to know will be explained in-story at some point down the line. On the rare occasion it doesn't, rest assured I'll explain it in an Author's Note at the end of the chapter said event (or phenomenon) occurs in.
> 
> -Currently, this story is rated T for violence, minor cursing, and surreal horror. However, this may become an M-rated fic in the future (not for sexy content, I might just kick the horror/violence aspect up a notch later on). If you can't handle these things, this fic probably isn't for you.
> 
> -This fic is cross-posted on Fanfiction.net. I'll try to update both every other Friday (including this Friday), but they'll both be updated at the same time regardless. If that's your preferred site, feel free to read it over there. (My account name over there is 2017tnt.)
> 
> -Lastly, this goes without saying, but I don't own any of these characters or this universe, Sega does.
> 
> -I hope you enjoy this story, and once more, thanks for stopping by!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonic finds himself lost in an unfamiliar new world.

When Sonic came to, everything hurt. And that literally meant everything.

His muscles ached, his eyes were watering like crazy, even his teeth were clenched together. Each of his limbs felt like Knuckles had ripped them off and reassembled them while sleep-deprived, and a thudding pain echoed through both his head and his chest. His ears hurt, each having a communication device inserted into him so he could talk to the team no matter where he was. Furthermore, the ground he was lying on was far from even, causing several pieces of pointy gravel beneath him to dig into the delicate skin beneath his fur.

Sonic sat up, a wave of nausea rocketing through him as he did, to brush the tiny rocks off his back the best he could. He would have started looking for Tails, but queasy as he was, he didn't want to lose his meager lunch. Thus, he was content to stay still until his stomach settled a bit. Nevertheless, that didn't stop him from taking in the scenery.

The place looked like it had been teeming with life at one point until some unspeakable disaster rolled through. Felled trees were everywhere, each one snapped in ways that boggled Sonic's mind. Sure, there were a few with the conventional horizontal cuts, but some were chopped at weird angles, some had cuts that weren't anything close to straight, and in one bizarre case two halves of a tree, cut along the width of its trunk, lay facing each other not five feet apart. The fallen trees looked pretty fresh, too- some of them even had leaves that had yet to turn brown. As for all other life, there appeared to be nothing more than a blanket of weeds, with the occasional drooping flower doing nothing to break up the monotony. Except for the plants fluttering in a half-hearted breeze, he saw nothing moving.

" _Well, this is odd,"_ Sonic thought. " _Okay, maybe Tails can help me sort out where I am."_

He felt around for the power switch on his communication device, flicked it to the 'on' position, and began speaking. "Tails, can you hear me?"

No response.

Sonic tried once more, practically shouting now. "Tails! Tails, come in! Knuckles? Amy? Anyone?"

Still nothing.

" _Well, that sucks,"_ Sonic thought. " _Guess I'll have to find them in person, then. But who knows how long that'll take? I mean, I_ _don't even know where I am right now. How are they supposed to?"_

He no longer felt like he was going to be sick, so he managed to stand up on unsteady legs. Right afterward, he picked an arbitrary direction and broke into a jog at the pedestrian speed of about fifty miles per hour. At that pace, it didn't take long for Sonic to find signs of civilization, which came in the form of a suburb with a road that led into a somewhat large city.

However, there appeared to be something… _off_ about it all. Even though it was the middle of the day, none of the houses had any lights on, and when Sonic peeked into a couple of windows, he couldn't see anyone (or anything, for that matter) moving. Their front lawns appeared to have fared no better than where he'd just come from, all of them either yellow, choked by weeds, barren, or some combination thereof. There were no cars parked in the street and almost none in the driveways, and even the ones that were looked so damaged that they more resembled action-movie props after an explosion than drivable vehicles. Even the road had problems: while this didn't look too severe yet, plants were starting to win the war against the pavement, poking out here and there through cracks.

Sonic didn't stick around long. Even if he was the hero of this world, this place was starting to give him the creeps. He wanted nothing more than to find an area that was at least visibly populated so he could figure out what on Mobius was going on.

He darted for the city, hoping to at least encounter someone on the way there, but the road was deserted of both cars and people until he entered the city. And once he got there, it took his breath away for all the wrong reasons.

This place probably used to be a magnificent city, but now it looked like a magnificent city that had endured a nuclear blast. The architecture was still incredible, with tall, sleek-looking buildings towering over Sonic for who-knew-how-many stories, but most of the windows nearby had either been shattered or boarded up, and the few that fit neither of these criteria still showed no signs of life behind them. The sidewalks were wide and free of trash, but they were badly cracked and, like the road before it, starting to give way to plants. A smattering of electronic billboards soared overhead ready to advertise anything and everything, but most of them looked broken and even those that hadn't been broken weren't on, displaying nothing but a black void.

" _Wow. I'm not sure where this is, but this place could use a tune-up,"_ Sonic thought. Having fought a villain whose primary goal was to take over the world, he'd seen his fair share of destroyed cities, but most of the time, they were rebuilt quickly and it was easy to tell they'd been inhabited to begin with. Here, the area just looked like no one ever had or ever would live here, and this place would just be left at the mercy of nature forevermore.

After a minute or so of taking the place in, Sonic finally saw someone he could talk to: a scrawny squirrel hurrying down a shadowy lane, a basket in one hand and something sharp-looking in the other. Not wanting to startle the guy, Sonic kept his pace reasonable when he moved to catch up, but that didn't stop him from doing a double take and nearly dropping the basket when he saw him.

In an instant, Sonic found himself roughly an inch away from the business end of what appeared to be a large steak knife. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm Sonic," Sonic said, masking his fear the best he could. "Sonic the Hedgehog."

The squirrel paused for a second, then his face contorted into a snarl and he menacingly stabbed the air right beside Sonic's head, Sonic jerking his head away from it as he did. "You're lying. Now, tell me your _real_ name before I kill you and leave you for the monsters."

Sonic put his hands up, not wanting to be stabbed to death before he could even figure out what was going on, and tried to make sense of what the squirrel had just said. "Look, I don't want any trouble, dude. Can you just explain what the hell you're talking about? I'm new here."

The squirrel's expression didn't change, but he did at least lower the knife once he saw Sonic meant no harm. "Okay, you're not crazy, just stupid. You never know these days, am I right?" He nervously chuckled afterward, as if he was expecting Sonic to slap him for saying something so callous.

Sonic _wished_ he could have slapped him, but getting stabbed wasn't on his list of things to do that day. Thus, he kept his emotions under lock and key, at least for now.

"Almost every day," the squirrel said, "we get attacked. I'm not going to waste time describing the things that do it, you'll see them soon enough. Just believe me when I say they ain't pretty."

Sonic wasn't about to take that lying down. "Is there something I can do to help?"

"Not much," the squirrel said, shaking his head. "I mostly carry around the knife so I don't get robbed. You can't get in close enough to hit them with anything sharp unless you have a death wish, and while guns can take them down, it takes so much ammo just to down one that they're effectively useless, too. We've got one good fighter who can take them on, but even he can't save everyone."

"Sounds like I should stay out of their way, then," Sonic said, but he felt otherwise. " _One, I should prepare for a fight, and two, I'm still not sure where I am, but it sure as hell isn't home."_

Before he could get any further, though, everything and everyone was interrupted by a piercing wail that sounded way too much like a scream. To Sonic, it merely sounded like an actor in a cheesy horror movie, but it caused the squirrel to go bug-eyed and drop the basket he was carrying, even if he held onto his knife with white knuckles.

"Whoever you are, get to cover," the squirrel yelled before booking it without even looking back. He never picked up the basket either, which Sonic now saw had nothing more than a few cans of miscellaneous vegetables and what had been about half a dozen loose eggs. (However, with the drop cracking their shells, they'd now become half a dozen stains.)

" _Well, I should probably figure out what's causing this,"_ Sonic thought. " _I can't just sit here and do nothing, anyway."_

Before he could take a step, though, something- well, several somethings- rocketed around a corner at a speed no one ordinary could ever hope to match. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Sonic knew he was up close and personal with one of the monsters. And just like he'd heard, they weren't pretty.

The creature, now only about fifty feet away, vaguely resembled Shadow, at least in terms of the shape and the color scheme. However, several glaring differences fought their way to the front of Sonic's mind, causing him to see it for the freak it truly was. The head was badly misshapen, looking like it was tilted to the right even though it was straight up. Sonic swore that both its eyes were different sizes. One arm was noticeably longer than the other, dangling well past his knee as he moved closer. Furthermore, the creature's gait unnerved Sonic quite a bit, looking like one knee didn't bend the way it was supposed to. Thus, the creature's motion, while still looking way more composed than it had any right to be, heavily favored its left side.

Even with its speed and the distraction of the noisy siren, Sonic still felt comfortable that he could win a fight with the Shadow knock-off. But then everything went south.

It didn't take long for him to notice, either. These things were clearly more intelligent than Sonic had given them credit for, because while he'd been gawking at the first one, about a dozen others had moved in from all sides to surround him, leaving him with nowhere to go if things went badly. Furthermore, he had no idea what they were capable of in combat, but if they had even a portion of Shadow's attack power, by the time they finished with him he'd look like he'd been shoved through a cheese grater.

On the inside, Sonic was starting to quake, but on the outside, he merely tensed, preparing to attack the closest one.

"You have until the count of three to leave me alone before I go nuts on you," he said aloud, just in case these things could understand what he was saying. Even as some of his assailants' faces screwed up in expressions that might have been seen as laughter toned down about three notches, Sonic began counting, knowing full well the odds were not in his favor.

"One… two…"

He never got to three.

Before he could spring into action, all the creatures in front of him were suddenly encased by an eerie bluish-green glow. Assuming it was an attack of some kind, Sonic charged up a Spin Dash, preparing to charge into the one directly ahead. However, while they all surged forward, none of them hit. Instead, they whipped right past him like they'd forgotten he was there. This was immediately followed by several loud crunches and ear-splitting, high-pitched screeches from what Sonic hoped was the monsters crashing into each other.

He would have started wondering what the heck was going on, but the answer was surprisingly obvious. In a spot that would have been directly behind the creature Sonic was about to attack stood someone else, looking like no one Sonic had ever met before. His fur was such a light gray that calling it white wouldn't have been much of a stretch, and the quills on his head stuck out in a shape Sonic was confident Knuckles would have made some corny joke over. Even stranger, while the fur on his hands appeared to match that of everywhere else on his body, both hands were surrounded by a glow of the same color he'd just seen on the robots.

Half of Sonic thought that the guy had probably just saved his life and thanks were in order. The other half screamed that he might be controlling the monsters and he either needed to attack or get out of there.

He paused, indecisive on which half to trust. One second. Two seconds.

Then, the new arrival broke the silence as the glow around his hands started to fade.

"Uhhh… whoever you are, I'm not sure if you're deaf or just plain stupid, but when that siren goes off, you need to get to cover or you're dead!"

"I think I figured that out when I nearly got killed," Sonic said dryly. "Thanks for the save, uhh…"

"Silver," the new guy replied. "Silver the Hedgehog. And you can thank me by getting out of here while I hold them off."

"Sorry, but no," Sonic said. "That's not how I roll. You saved my life, now I'm going to work to return the favor."

"You won't be in a position to return anything if you get killed on my watch! Go, leave before…"

The next few seconds hosted a series of events that Sonic knew would be etched into his mind for quite some time. One of the monsters, now free from the glow that had captured them earlier, lunged for Silver's unprotected back. Before it could reach, though, Sonic was there, blocking its path before knocking it backward. While Sonic was recovering from that, several more tried to flank both him and Silver, but he was having none of that, using one hand to send Sonic's assailants flying and the other to do the same for his own. This left Silver with his back to the last three remaining, but before any of them could try anything, Sonic Spin Dashed into the one closest to him, sending it toppling into the other two before they all fell like bowling pins.

It was Silver's turn to freeze up. "What the- how-"

"I'll explain later," Sonic said. "Help me take these things down and we just might make it out of this alive!"

Silver was too stunned to do anything but say, "Okay, I will."

The monsters had recovered quickly, and now surrounded the two of them. A loud crash emanating from further down the block indicated that more of them had likely arrived. The two of them were outnumbered and probably outclassed. However, none of that mattered in the long run.

All that mattered was that it was time to fight.


	2. Heroes Never Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonic and Silver reveal their abilities to each other through combat.

Sonic had barely even met Silver, but he already knew he was someone he'd respect.

Sure, he might not measure up to his friends in the long run. Maybe he wasn't as unshakeable as Shadow or as powerful as Knuckles or as dedicated as Amy. For all he knew, Silver could be a terrible person underneath the whole "saving-your-lives" veil. But that wasn't the point. Even if everything he'd said and done up until now was a complete farce, he'd still jumped into a group of powerful monsters to save someone he didn't even know.

No matter what Silver was like, that took guts.

However, it was going to take far more than guts to get them out of this one. Hopefully, Silver was used to unbalanced combat, because Sonic hardly remembered any fights he'd been in that were this stacked against him.

The Shadow knock-offs didn't talk, but they seemed to revel in the idea of having superior numbers. They even slowed down their advance to allow a few stragglers to join the cluster of enemies, swelling their ranks even more. The circle of enemies surrounding Sonic and Silver began to close tighter, tighter, tighter…

Then one of the clones, the one directly in front of Sonic, broke formation to charge.

And all hell broke loose.

These things didn't appear to like one-on-one combat, for they all surged at Sonic and Silver at once, giving them only a split second to react. Three crashed into Sonic, knocking him backward about six feet, even as he somehow remained upright. Five more followed the same routine with Silver, but unlike Sonic, he managed to land rather cleanly, hovering in the air just a second longer than Sonic thought was natural.

Sonic dropped into a Spin Dash to block the next couple of attacks, while Silver reprised his attack from earlier, sending almost a dozen of the monsters flying halfway down the block. Sonic dashed behind Silver, attempting to take out the four monsters that had attempted to approach him from behind, but Silver was faster, sending them almost as far as the last group in the opposite direction before adopting a fighting stance once more.

Sonic couldn't help but marvel at the skill Silver was displaying. "Is this normal?"

"Yes," Silver said, jabbing one arm backward to block a monster rushing at him from behind. "Except with worse odds. And all day long."

For once, Sonic had nothing to say to that. Thus, he decided the best course of action would be to shut up and go on the attack to give Silver a few more precious seconds of rest. Spin Dashing into the leader of a large group of the clones approaching them from the front, most of them wound up knocking each other sprawling. As for the few that didn't, they were easy enough to knock down with homing attacks.

Unfortunately for the duo, these things appeared to take way more than one hit to knock out. Even the monster Sonic had just bashed in the face of merely got back up, its face almost instantly changing from unrecognizable to merely deformed. The same appeared to be the case for all the ones Silver had flung earlier.

Once more, they formed a circle around Sonic and Silver to cut off any potential escape routes and began to slowly advance. And just like last time, a few more loners joined the circle, each one another chance that Sonic and Silver wouldn't live to see the sunset.

This time, the monsters charged in a more unified manner. While somewhere between eight and twelve monsters swarmed Silver, the rest converged on Sonic, knocking him to the ground before he had time to react. Reacting on blind instinct, Sonic attempted to swing his pinned limbs with all his might. For a time, it worked, knocking several of his adversaries off, but they grew wise to the tactic in seconds and simply dogpiled him.

With a raw, throat-tearing scream, Sonic channeled as much energy as he could into his elbows, shoving them against the pavement of the road beneath him. Sonic did accomplish what he intended this way, causing monsters to stumble and fly in all directions at once, but he'd miscalculated the amount of force he'd need. Instead of merely getting to his feet, he overshot the mark and nearly landed on his face, just barely managing to jab his hands in front of him to break his fall.

He'd barely hit the ground before he felt several pairs of hands grab him around the middle, forcing him to his knees with no mercy. One of the monsters holding him, with a disturbing, feral-sounding growl, closed his eyes, his body starting to glow a bloody red.

Sonic managed to give that monster an open-handed slap to the face, but he didn't even move. He might as well have hit a stone wall for all the reaction he'd gotten.

Silver, thankfully, was looking out for him. Before the monster could finish whatever it was trying to do, the red glow surrounding him disappeared, almost instantly being replaced by the shade of green Sonic had started to associate with Silver's attacks. A second later, both the creatures holding Sonic still had been sent reeling, although one of them managed to rip out a chunk of Sonic's fur in the process, sending a nasty jolt of pain through his side.

Whipping his head around to try and figure out his next move, Sonic noticed Silver surrounded by at least a dozen enemies, struggling to keep them away. Without wasting a second, Sonic launched a homing attack into the closest one to him, drawing the cluster's attention away from Silver, before Spin Dashing into about half of those that remained. Those he hit went flying, those that didn't pulled away from Silver to directly attack him.

Several bouts of screeching right afterward implied that Silver had managed to hurl the majority of the creatures attacking Sonic away from him, and a startled yell following that implied he hadn't kept them off of himself for long. Without an instant of hesitation, Sonic rushed to where Silver was, bowling over about half a dozen attackers in the process and causing the rest to scatter.

While none of the monsters were down for the count yet, the duo appeared to finally be making some progress, as the ones that Sonic had just hit were slow to get up and moved with noticeably less energy than before. That didn't stop them from fighting, mind you, but it caused them to lose enough steam that they were far more manageable to deal with than their uninjured buddies.

About a dozen uninjured ones honed in on Sonic, charging him all at once, but Sonic leapt out of the way, just clearing the nearest one by a few inches. This caused all of them to crash into each other instead, each staggering in a different direction before falling over. Some took a few seconds to get back up. Others didn't get back up at all.

"We're making progress," Sonic shouted to Silver, who was now dealing with a cluster of enemies of his own. "Keep hitting them, I think we've almost got them beat!"

"Don't jinx it," Silver yelled back before sending his assailants crashing into the remains of a destroyed building. Hopefully, no one had chosen to take shelter there.

Sonic wasn't sure whether the remaining monsters noticed that their numbers were getting smaller and smaller the longer they attacked, or if they made this decision by sheer coincidence. Either way, the monsters began to retreat, staggering off aimlessly in small groups. Sonic ran to follow them and finish the job, but suddenly, no matter how hard he tried to run, it felt like he was getting nowhere.

It didn't take long to see the cause. While he couldn't see Silver from the direction his head was stuck in, he could still hear what he had to say. "Don't. I know you want to keep them from returning, but I learned the hard way that wiping out a whole group is usually a bad idea."

"Really?" Now Sonic felt interested and confused at the same time. "You're just going to let them leave, heal up, and attack again sometime soon?"

"Better than the alternative," Silver said. "A while back, I'd say a few years ago but most of my memories are kind of fuzzy nowadays, I actually succeeded in taking out an entire group of those things at once. The others, and yes, we fought nowhere near all of those things, didn't seem to take that lightly. Now, you might be asking, how did I find that out?"

Sonic felt himself being spun around to face Silver, although he still couldn't move an inch.

"The next day, a huge force of them invaded town. And by huge, I mean hundreds, maybe even thousands. Just about anything that was standing before this all started got destroyed, and let's just say the body count was much higher than any attack like it before, even with me doing everything I could to help. I was fighting to clear them out for almost four days straight. I think I slept a grand total of three hours during that period and maybe had one meal. Every time I thought they were gone, another siren went off and I'd have to rush over to prevent another massacre."

Something was sloshing inside Sonic's stomach, and a wave of anxiety rushed over him, followed by relief. If Silver had been a few seconds slower, he might have unintentionally put everyone here in even more danger than they were before. "Oh… I'm sorry, I didn't know…"

"It didn't happen, so don't stress about it," said Silver. "If I stressed about every single thing that _could_ have happened, I'd have died from a heart attack years ago."

"Understandable," Sonic said. Silver's grip around him faded, and he stuck the landing perfectly, just as he expected.

"Anyway, it was nice to meet you, Silver, and that fight did give me a nice rush, but I probably should get going…"

"Wait," Silver said, cutting off Sonic before he could finish. "Before you go, could you just tell me your name?"

Sonic weighed the pros and cons in his head for a few seconds. If Silver reacted anything like the last guy he'd told his name, Sonic was dead. However, Silver seemed like someone Sonic could trust to take it in stride, given how much crap he'd been put through just today, let alone his life if this was who the other guy had referred to when he talked about the "one good fighter."

In the end, Sonic decided to chance it. "My name's Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog."

Silver did a double-take but fortunately didn't go on the attack. He stared at Sonic, mouth agape, not blinking, not moving. With even the lightest push from behind, he probably would have toppled over.

"No," Silver said. "No way. You're dead. You died decades ago."

"Wait, I'm supposed to be dead?" Now Sonic was confused. "Hold up, what year is it?"

Silver broke out of his trance just long enough to answer. "If I remember correctly, I think the year is 2106. Maybe I'm off by a little, but…"

Now it was Sonic's turn to stare blankly for a few seconds before working up the composure to answer. "What? No, that's not possible. It's 2006. And I'm alive and well. Is this some kind of prank? Knuckles, are you taking me for a ride again?"

"I swear on my life this isn't a prank," Silver said. "And I doubt it's him, he's supposed to be dead too. Wait, is he with you?"

"As far as I can tell, no," Sonic said. "I was alone when I woke up, and I've been alone since then."

"Okay," Silver said. "If I look hard enough, I can probably find a calendar that proves my point. However, I'm not quite sure if I believe you are who you say you are. Plenty have made that claim before, but they've all been proven false before. You mind if I ask you to do something quick?"

"Sure, no problem," Sonic said.

Silver took a deep breath, then said, "Perform a homing attack on me."

"Okay," Sonic replied. "Can't be that hard, I'll do it right now."

In a burst of speed, he attempted to do it, but Silver flung his arms out, stopping him about two feet short before sending him flying backward. "You're going to have to try harder than that!"

" _No fair,"_ Sonic thought before rushing in to try again, only for the same thing to happen: he got close, Silver blocked him and flung him away.

The same thing happened over and over and over, Sonic getting more and more frustrated each time. He waited a while before attacking to try and catch Silver off-guard. He attacked from different directions to try and hit him from behind. He even attempted to hurl rocks and loose objects at him as a distraction. Nothing worked. Silver just blocked his attack time after time after time.

After what felt like an eternity, Sonic's blood pressure felt ready to spike through the roof, he was exhausted, and he had made no progress on landing a hit on Silver. Yet, he tried again, only to be stopped once more.

"I think you've realized this by now," Silver said, a cocky grin on his face, "but it's no use."

That did it. Sonic had been holding back at least a little before because he didn't want to actually hurt Silver in the process, but at this point, he'd had enough. With a shriek of rage that would put a witch to shame, he barreled at Silver at top speed, seamlessly transitioning to a homing attack before he crashed into Silver, sending him flying backward at a frightening speed.

Sonic instantly regretted it, all that rage pouring out of him in an instant. He darted behind Silver to catch him before he fell, but that soon was proven unneeded, as Silver managed to slow his fall enough that even when he hit the ground, the landing probably did minimal damage.

Sonic's first instinct was to apologize. "Sorry about that, went a little overboard…"

"Don't apologize," Silver said, "that was incredible! When I made that test, the point was that if you were the real Sonic, you'd keep trying until you literally couldn't force your body to do it anymore, since Sonic was among the most determined people in the universe. I never expected you to be actually able to hit me!"

Some of the guilt disappeared, although he still wanted to make sure he hadn't hurt Silver. "Never mind, then. Either way, though, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, don't worry about it," Silver said. "It'll take a lot more than one hit like that to kill me. You're the real deal, I know that for sure. Now, I'd like you to come with me."

"Okay," Sonic said. "What for?"

Silver had started to walk down the empty street by then, but he still managed to shoot a response over his shoulder.

"If you're actually from when you say you are, I've got quite the history lesson for you."


	3. Welcome to My World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Silver attempts to explain the world's current situation to Sonic.

Sonic followed Silver through the ruined city, not sure where their destination was or even if there was one to begin with.

He didn't see another soul the entire trek there. Sure, while the attack had probably caused everybody to take shelter, it should have been clear that the threat was long gone. Even now, though, no one roamed the streets or even appeared to be glued to their windows.

Sonic moved to walk alongside Silver after a while, mostly to try and strike up some form of a conversation to try and keep his mind sharp. The first words out of his mouth, to the shock of absolutely no one, were, "Is this normal?"

"People don't go outside unless they have to," Silver said. "On top of that, since I figured out pretty quickly that telling everyone the threat is gone just results in it coming right back, just about everybody waits a couple of hours after the siren goes off before even checking if the danger seems to be gone, just to be safe."

Sonic almost instantly regretted asking that question in the first place. "Better safe than sorry."

"Agreed," Silver said. Sonic didn't push any further after that, merely following Silver in silence until after what felt like an eternity, he finally stopped.

"Well, this is home," Silver said, gesturing in front of him to a surprisingly intact apartment building that seemed to have weathered the terrors of whatever had happened here quite well. Almost all of the windows were intact. The bricks Sonic could see from here were surprisingly free of things growing on it. Even the glass revolving door that marked the front entryway was intact, although it made a screeching noise that rivaled the siren when Silver tried to push it forward.

After a few seconds of straining, Silver gave up trying to move the thing with his body, stepped out, and simply thrust his hands at the door like he had with the monsters from earlier. This sent the door spinning, albeit with it shrieking like a witch being burned alive. Silver stepped in while it was still spinning, and Sonic wasted no time following him in, the two of them ending up in what had once been the lobby.

However, the only reason Sonic knew that was because the word "LOBBY" hung on the far wall, right above where the receptionist's desk probably used to be. That, along with just about everything else that would make up a typical lobby- furniture, overpriced vending machines, paintings- were gone, probably having been taken by outsiders quite some time ago. The only things left were the paint (which was starting to peel off the walls, anyway) and an analog clock that didn't appear to work.

Silver turned left and disappeared for a second. Sonic felt panic start to rise in his chest until he realized Silver had simply started hiking up a flight of stairs. Surprisingly enough, the stairs were made of concrete, so they would have given into the ravages of time far less than the conventional wood or stone, but that didn't stop them from being pitted and covered with a thin layer of dust (not counting some footprints).

Five flights of stairs later, Silver reached the top floor of the building and turned right, disappearing from sight again even as Sonic tried to track him. When Sonic made it to the top and could finally see Silver again, he was standing at the far end of a short hall, holding a doorknob.

"Well, I'm home," Silver said to no one in particular. Quickly, he pulled open the door, slipping inside as Sonic followed.

For such a horrible, horrible place, Silver's apartment looked quite pleasant; Sonic would have been remiss to see it as something out of the ordinary back home. Everything was extremely tidy, with no dust, debris, or even clutter jumping out at him. A shelf took up a good portion of the wall to his right, on which Silver had placed several vases of flowers as well as what appeared to be a lone portrait. A mattress had been crammed against the far wall near the doorway, angled so that it directly faced the one window (although it was more of a hole in the wall now since the glass had been taken out), which would have had an excellent view had there been anything to see. The kitchen was near the far end, a handful of strange-looking appliances populating it, still looking fresh and ready to be used. Of the two doors off to the side, chances were one led to a bathroom, although the other could have been for just about anything. Only three things kept Sonic's minds from being completely at ease here: not a single light was on, the kitchen was mysteriously devoid of silverware, pots, or pans, and of course, the mire that made itself clear just outside the window.

"Nice place," was all Sonic could think to say.

"Thanks for the compliment," Silver said back. "I don't get to spend much time here, but I treasure the moments I do. You want anything to eat?"

Sonic wanted to be as little of a burden as possible, but given that the chance of his being able to leave anytime soon was minimal, he was going to have to eat at some point. "Sure. A little conversation over dinner sounds great."

Silver didn't say anything to that, instead moving to the pantry to get something. In a few seconds, he'd pulled out a plastic gallon bottle of water, as well as a few bins with a limited assortment of fruits and vegetables. Before he could get any further, though, Sonic asked, "where did you get those?"

"Just about everybody grows something to help out," Silver says. "Some people grow different things just to add some variety, but for the most part it just comes down to whatever's easiest. Once the stuff's edible, which tends to happen in cycles, it gets traded around so everybody has something to eat that they like, in a relative sense at least. I just take whatever's left because I'm long past caring."

"I'm not picky either, don't worry about that," Sonic said. "Anything else I need to know that isn't about monsters?"

"Actually, yes," Silver said. "Running water isn't really a thing anymore, so if you have to go to the bathroom, there's a trench on the far side of town most people use. I know it's not going to be far for you, but it's a couple of miles. Also, everything's going to be raw, electricity doesn't work either. We have some solar panels, but those are reserved for keeping the warning sirens running."

"Thanks for the info," Sonic said, silently resolving to hold it in for as long as possible.

With no cooking required, it didn't take long for Silver to set up two plates of mixed fruit and vegetables, each one chopped into pieces small enough that eating them by hand wouldn't be seen as _that_ impolite. While it would be far from the most delicious things Sonic had eaten, it was shaping up to be pretty good in its own right.

For a few minutes, the two of them didn't talk, focusing on eating. The flavors of each component worked together far better than Sonic expected, to the point he debated asking Silver what had gone into that so he could replicate it later. It didn't take long for the plates to go from full to mostly empty, with only a few wayward pieces of food remaining on each.

Sonic took that as an opportunity to break the silence. "So… I remember you saying something about a history lesson before we came here. What did you have to tell me?"

Silver took a deep breath. "It's going to be a lot. I know you can't exactly take notes, but pay as much attention to this as you can, got it?"

Sonic nodded, leaving the floor open for Silver to start recounting all he remembered.

"I know you had problems with a Doctor Eggman back in your day. Funnily enough, we had problems with one as well. It was a different Doctor Eggman, obviously- if my memory's correct, I believe it was one Samuel Robotnik, three generations down the line from yours."

" _Wow, Eggman actually had kids,"_ Sonic thought. " _Wait, did he actually find someone willing to marry him or did he make his kids with a machine or…"_ He stopped there, shivering a little at the deeply unpleasant third possibility.

"While most of your other friends eventually passed on, Shadow took up your position after you could no longer handle it," Silver said. "From what I remember, he was successful for quite a while. He even began to sound a bit like you."

Despite everything, Sonic couldn't help but smile a little. Whenever Shadow lightened up, even a little, it was a cause for celebration.

Silver paused for a moment here, taking another deep breath before he continued. "But one day about five years ago, everything changed. Everyone was already uneasy because neither Shadow nor Doctor Eggman had made any kind of public statement for quite some time. They figured something awful was going to happen, but they never could have predicted what did. Nobody was prepared when it happened."

Sonic felt like he already knew the ending to this story, but he listened on anyway.

"It was a Wednesday," Silver said, tears starting to form in his eyes as he pushed further. "I was in school. I'd just finished a chemistry test. Right as I got to the last class of the day, the principal announced that we were entering lockdown. Normally, I thought nothing of it, because we'd had drills before, but there was just something… off about his voice. It set everyone on edge, including me, so we did our part and hunkered down in the corner without saying a word."

Silver was fighting to keep crying, but it wasn't one he was going to win if things progressed like they had been. "Shortly after that started, all our phones went off at the same time. When I checked it right afterward… let's just say the news reports weren't pretty. All I remembered were the headlines: 'Global Threat Loose, Do Not Go Outside Under Any Circumstances,' 'Worldwide Massacre in Progress, Call Your Loved Ones Now,' and others that sounded even worse. A couple of kids started laughing, thought it was a joke of some kind."

Silver's expression hardened, even as tears steadily trickled down his cheeks. "That all stopped once the window broke."

Sonic could imagine it clear as day: a group of terrified high schoolers, most of them with no self-defense skills whatsoever, being forced to face down a monster that resembled their greatest hero. He didn't know how Silver could do that- hell, he wouldn't have been sure if he could have done that in his high school years.

"In seconds, there was blood," Silver said. "So much blood. I couldn't look at the bodies. I remember doing nothing except knocking aside the attacker and fleeing like the coward I was."

Sonic disapproved of that interpretation of what happened, but let Silver continue uninterrupted. "The rest of the town was even worse. Blood everywhere. So many monsters. So much screaming." Silver cupped his hands over his ears. "I will _never_ forget the screaming."

Silver kept going. "I needed someone, anyone, to help me through this. Somehow, I managed to look for everyone I lived with and didn't die," Silver said, the trickle of tears threatening to turn into a full-on stream. "My mother's apartment. My brother's middle school. The bank where my father worked." He paused again, a deep, gasping sob erupting from his throat. "All I can say is that there were no happy endings."

Even Sonic's happy-go-lucky attitude was starting to waver. He had a high ceiling, but even he could only handle so much concentrated misery before being pushed over the edge of despair. And Silver wasn't even done.

"I remember getting into an armored car with a bunch of guys with guns that stopped for me. They might have been attempting to kidnap me, but I didn't care anymore. I'd already lost everything I loved, what was a kidnapping going to do on top of that? We got on the highway and managed to make it maybe five miles before we got swarmed. The guys with guns somehow held their own for a while, but once they ran out of bullets…"

Sonic didn't need to think very hard about what the end result was there.

"I remember running and running hard, and then I lost them at some point or at least I think I did, because I'm not dead," Silver said. "After a few hours, I found myself here. There were bodies. So many bodies. Most of them you could barely recognize as something that had once been a sentient creature. But once I ventured deeper in, having to stop and fight every once in a while with barely anything left to spare, I realized that this place was the only hope I had."

Silver's tears had slowed. The painful part was probably over. Sonic didn't want to push him there, it was clear he was almost done.

"A big city meant a lot of death and despair, but it also meant more survivors," Silver said. "When we kept getting attacked, I built up a reputation over the next few months that I could fend off monsters without a weapon. We were attacked so constantly, I was able to practice, practice, and practice some more until my attacks became vastly more effective. Then, things finally began to change for the better. I was treated as a sign that not all was lost, that maybe there were others like me, keeping other cities from being completely overrun. As for me, I'm less optimistic. A week after everything began, just about any way to keep in touch over a distance vanished. If there's another place like us, I've never seen it, and as far as I know, we're the last people alive."

Silver took one last deep, slow breath before finally gathering up the courage to finish. "But even if that's true, I'm keeping everyone I can alive until I'm dead. I want to keep the people here safe to try and atone for the ones I didn't that fateful day."

He closed his eyes, it was clear he'd finished. Sonic's breathing was shaky, his body struggling to avoid tumbling over the precipice of sorrow. That feeling lasted for ten or so long seconds before he managed to keep his emotions at bay. For now, at least.

"That's all I know," Silver said. "Neither Eggman nor Shadow have made a peep all this time, so unless I learn otherwise, I'm assuming both are permanently out of commission. I don't even know what caused all this. It just happened, and here we are."

"Thanks for telling me all that, I know it must have been hard for you," Sonic said. "It was hard for me, and I was just listening. I can only imagine how awful going through all that was."

"It's hard," Silver says, "but it gets easier every time."

Sonic opened his mouth to say something else, but before he could start, he got cut off by what appeared to be the high-pitched, hideous wail of a siren. Before either of them could process that, its screeching was joined by that of several others, creating a noise so loud and so grating that Sonic clamped his hands over his ears.

Silver began making wild gestures at Sonic, then began yelling so loud Sonic could hear it even with his ears covered. "They're back for round two, we have to go!"

"Wait," said Sonic. "Where are we going?"

"Not sure where, but this one's going to be bad," Silver said. "More than one siren at once always signifies a lot of trouble, especially since we just got attacked maybe an hour ago. Just go wherever you think you'll be needed most, any help at all is better than what I usually get."

"No problem, but let's get moving," Sonic said. "Every second we spend here is another second everyone else is in danger. I don't want any blood on my hands, I just got here."

On that note, both Sonic and Silver leapt out the hole in the wall posing as a window, landing neatly as could be before sprinting towards the madness that was to come.


	4. Divided We Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the duo diverges to fight more efficiently, Silver gets attacked by a threat he never imagined facing.

Silver didn't have to wait long to figure out what the cause of concern was.

Once he'd gotten a few blocks away from the apartment, a massive crowd of monsters made itself clear, attacking anything in their way. Several were pulling off a near-perfect replica of the homing attack Sonic was known for, trying to break into nearby buildings. Others merely destroyed whatever they could. However, soon after Silver and Sonic emerged into what was presumably their field of view, they all stopped what they were doing, stared at the new arrivals for a second, and then charged.

Silver didn't have time to say anything to Sonic, but even without a coordinated plan they could still do quite a bit of damage. Silver ensnared the ten or so in the front in his glow, causing some of the other attackers to crash into them as they stopped. Of the others that either leapt or otherwise dodged their makeshift barricade, Sonic knocked about half of them sideways with a rapid-fire chain of his own homing attacks, while Silver jerked his arms backward to slam the monsters he'd caught into those that remained.

They didn't even get a second to breathe after that, the monsters just kept coming. While Silver didn't exactly have time to stop and examine the battlefield, the odds were definitely worse than the last time around if the sheer volume of attacks was anything to go by. Him not having recovered fully from the last go-around wasn't helping either- it wouldn't take too long for fatigue to set in.

Sonic, however, didn't even appear to be tiring, much less exhausted. Silver had no idea exactly _how_ indomitable Sonic's spirit had been back where he'd come from, but it had to be pretty high if fighting whatever the hell these things were while vastly outnumbered didn't even put a damper on it.

" _Maybe it's me."_ Silver allowed his mind to stray for just a split second, but that split second nearly killed him. A new wave of attackers rushed him from the back, and he didn't notice until they were almost on top of him. He swung his arms behind him to block the closest ones, then leapt straight up, jumping the charge of the rest. As he landed, he saw Sonic ram into the ones that had missed him, sending them careening every which way as he did.

"You'd think these things would try different tactics the second time around," Sonic yelled over the noise.

"Don't jinx it," Silver yelled back, stopping a charge from his left side as he did.

For a brief while, this fight was appearing to follow the same pattern as the last one, albeit much more slowly. Because their numbers were so much more unequal this time around, it took a while to hit the same monster twice, but after what felt like an eternity and a half, they managed to knock one down and have it stay down.

It couldn't have come any sooner. Silver was so soggy with sweat his fur was almost dripping, and it took all the effort he could muster just to keep going. Barring the apocalypse happening a second time, as soon as this was done, he planned to go home and pass out for at least twice as long as usual (although really, that just meant six hours of sleep as opposed to three). Sonic hadn't lost any enthusiasm, but Silver could see his strategy (if he'd had one to begin with) becoming less and less coherent, more and more of his maneuvers seeming completely random.

" _Come on,"_ Silver thought. " _Keep it together. Not much longer now…"_

If only that were true.

Several more sirens proceeded to go off, their hideous screeches causing both sides of the conflict to freeze in their tracks. Silver twisted his head to try and figure out what was causing it, but to no avail- whatever had set off the alarms was too far away for him to see.

A chorus of pained grunts indicated Sonic had wasted less time than everyone and everything else getting back on the offensive. This snapped Silver back into battle mode as well, sending his closest attackers sprawling once more. A few of them managed to pop right back up, but the rest seemed to be down for good this time.

"I thought these things spaced out their attacks," Sonic said, dodging a charge as he did.

"Well, they didn't this time," Silver responded. "And-" he vaulted to the side to dodge another challenge here- "I don't know about you, but I can't keep this up much longer."

"Then don't," Sonic said, working to fend off the enemies that remained. "I'm still fine, I can take on more of these things. You think you can finish off these guys?"

Silver swung his hands forward, ensnaring a trio of the remaining monsters before instantly knocking them down, the strain of the effort searing his arms. "I think so."

"So, here's the deal," Sonic said, bowling over a cluster of five combatants as he did. "I'm going to run in that general direction and figure out what caused those alarms. I'll be back in a few. Again, you sure you can deal with this?"

"Positive," Silver said, hopping sideways to dodge a two-sided charge, sending his assailants crashing into each other instead.

"Then I'll be going," Sonic replied. "Meet you back here in five."

With that, Sonic darted off in the direction of the still-shrieking sirens. One of Silver's opponents made a halfhearted attempt to chase him, but if anything Silver knew about Sonic was correct, he had next to no chance of being caught. And that was definitely something to cheer about.

Not that he had the energy or time left to cheer. Even with them having whittled the number of attackers in the area down to single digits, that didn't make taking them out any less arduous. They weren't getting any less determined to take him out, either.

The attacks kept coming in quick succession, Silver letting his instincts take over in an attempt to give his mind something vaguely resembling a break. But it appeared to be unnecessary, for a few attacks later, the creatures still capable of moving on their own began to retreat, taking as many of their fallen counterparts with them as possible.

Silver let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding in. " _I probably should go look for Sonic, it looks like we're done here."_

Maybe Silver was just incredibly unlucky that day. Perhaps whatever higher power he believed in had turned their back on him. It could, against all odds, be nothing more than sheer coincidence. But no matter what the cause was, its effect was the same: for the second time that afternoon, Silver's words were proven untrue mere seconds after he spoke them.

If possible, the sirens somehow got louder than they were before, with the ones near Silver nor Sonic having shut off. Even Silver would have clamped his hands over his ears, but he knew that if he did that, he could easily be blindsided by something he'd never see.

What came next, however, was quite visible.

First, there was just one. Then a few more. Several dozen after that.

In what felt like a heartbeat, the street in front of Silver had been swallowed up by hundreds of monsters, all of them packed together like sardines, even as they parted to absorb the few stragglers from earlier. Even fully powered, there was no way Silver could have caught them all at once, and with him being as drained as he was, another large-scale battle was the last thing he needed.

However, they didn't look ready to attack yet. As soon as the leftovers from the group that Silver had been fighting were indistinguishable from the rest, they came to a dead stop, plunging the street into absolute silence save for Silver's increasingly-panicked breathing.

" _Sonic,"_ Silver thought in desperation, " _if you'd like to come back, now's the time…"_

But there was no sign of Sonic. Having gotten just about every bad break possible so far, Silver was starting to support the "higher deity hates me" theory he'd been brewing up.

The silence continued for far longer than Silver had ever expected it to. The creatures even turned away from him, instead seeming to collectively focus on something in their midst. While it clearly was their size or smaller, since Silver couldn't see it from here, if these things held it in such high regard it couldn't be good for him.

Without warning, there was a beat of intense silence, one so strong that it sucked in the faint light of the setting sun and took Silver's breath away.

Then came the light, a blood-red beam so piercing Silver blocked his eyes with one hand in an attempt to keep from going blind. That light was accompanied by a vicious roaring noise, one that seemed capable of snapping Silver's sanity between its fingers like a twig if it so desired, and with the noise came a massive wave of energy that blew Silver's fur backward and nearly knocked him off his feet.

Then, as soon as it had started, it stopped, the only remnant of it remaining coming in the form of a faint glow coming from what appeared to be the center of the enemy cluster.

The glow's source started moving, the monsters parting once more to make room for it as it made its way toward Silver. Before he was anywhere close to ready, the last ones standing between him and whatever had caused that inexplicable event had stepped aside.

Transfixed, Silver stared at the hole left behind, eyes seeing but not comprehending.

And before Silver could say a single word or even make a somewhat coherent noise, Shadow the Hedgehog stepped into the light, calmly regarding Silver with a thousand-yard glare.

" _No,"_ Silver thought. " _No way. I'm hallucinating. Or delusional. I don't know which. That can't… he'd never…"_

But it seemed too… _perfect_ to be one of the clones he'd come to despise. Most of them had at least some noticeable defect in their anatomy to distinguish themselves from what they were supposed to resemble. This hedgehog had none. His color scheme matched perfectly. His shoes were identical to the ones Shadow always wore. Even the eyes, despite being red-rimmed and angrier than Silver would have ever expected even Shadow to look, were the same shade of red he'd always remembered.

It had to be him. There was simply no other explanation.

"I am Shadow the Hedgehog," Shadow said, still not taking his eyes off Silver. "I don't know who you are, but you are no match for me. Prepare to be exterminated."

Silver remained calm on the outside, but his stomach was sloshing about and his brain was screaming at him with everything it had. " _This is bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad…"_

Fighting wasn't an option. If even half the things he remembered about Shadow were true, he stood no chance against him in a fair fight, and that was before he'd neared exhaustion and Shadow having a small army of capable fighters on his side. The only hope was to escape, prolong his fate long enough for Sonic to return. Even though they stood little chance even as a partnership, it was still that, a chance. Not a certainty of failure like it was now.

Silver's eyes darted from one unrealistic scenario to the next, desperately trying to figure out some kind of escape route. Anything requiring him to remain on street level was out; he'd just get surrounded that way. On top of that, he'd burned so much energy just to get to this point that anything involving prolonged flight wasn't an option either. There seemed to simply be nowhere to go.

Then, led by Shadow, the wave of enemies rushed him all at once. In a blind panic, he leapt as high as he could go, every muscle he had painfully stiffening with the effort, then willed himself to stay off the ground with everything he had, using his momentum to keep floating forward, trying to reach a broken streetlight not fifty feet away so he could climb it and have a brief moment to figure out his next move.

But, for the first time this entire fight, luck appeared to be on his side.

He expected a relentless barrage of attacks the instant the creatures had charged, but instead, he only felt one, which slammed into him from below and sent him careening upward. Sure, every nerve in his body felt like it was on fire, but up was the only direction he knew would be safe, at least for now. His levitation wore off as he neared the top of a tall building, and as a result of both that and his momentum, while he hadn't gone high enough to clear the roof, he was able to grab the ledge with both hands, and though a combination of strength, momentum, and sheer determination, he pulled himself onto the roof before collapsing on his side, panting heavily.

Shouts were echoing down below, although with one ear against the ground Silver couldn't quite make out what was being said. Even after unsteadily getting himself to a standing position, his senses had dimmed far enough from sheer exertion that everything he heard sounded like it was tinged with white noise.

He was far enough up to invoke a feeling of vertigo, but considering what he'd just gone through, the likely-dizzying height he currently stood at was the least of his concerns. All he wanted to know was what was happening below him.

When he looked down, that appeared to be nothing. The monsters that had been ferociously attacking him just seconds ago were now standing in an awkward cluster, looking very unsure of what to do next. For Silver, as soon as he saw that, he released a deep, content sigh. He was safe up here, at least for now.

"You done staring yet?"

Well, scratch that. Silver whirled around, revealing Shadow standing on the opposite end of the roof, face contorted in anger, eyes glowing a demonic shade of red, fists surrounded by the same vivid glow that Silver had seen earlier.

Then, something came back to him. " _Crap… forgot he could teleport…"_

Shadow appeared to pay no mind to Silver's thoughts, instead choosing to make sure Silver was looking him in the eye through a cold, cutting stare. Then, as spheres of ruby energy began crackling around both his fists, Shadow said a single, chilling sentence.

"This ends now."


	5. Accept No Substitutes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonic and Shadow clash once again.

Sonic didn't know what had set off the alarms from earlier, but it looked like whatever it was hadn't stuck around.

" _Eh, maybe it was a false alarm,"_ Sonic thought. " _Nothing to worry about, I'll just have to tell Silver that. Maybe he knows how to shut these things off."_

To be safe, he spent a few minutes darting through the area, scanning the surroundings for anything that looked like a threat. That search turned out fruitless; the only thing that even remotely qualified was a broken bottle Sonic nearly stepped on when hurrying through an alley. Everyone else appeared to have taken heed of the siren and gotten inside, and no Shadow knockoffs came out to attack him, either.

After covering everywhere within a three-block radius of the central alarm three times, Sonic concluded that if there was a threat nearby, he couldn't find it.

" _Silver never mentioned anything about invisible threats, and I don't want to waste time chasing after nothing,"_ Sonic mused. " _Let's go find him again."_

Sonic ran in the direction he'd come from, lifeless air whipping his face as he charged across the cracked pavement, heart pumping and head starting to pound. He was going nowhere near top speed (for not only did Sonic often miss things when he ran that fast, he'd also learned from experience that stepping in a pothole while going several hundred miles an hour was just about the opposite of fun), but "slow" for Sonic and "slow" for just about everyone else weren't even in the same ballpark.

However, after Sonic made a hard right, leaving nothing but a straight shot between him and where Silver had been, the sight unfolding in front of his eyes caused him to hit top speed, his brain doing nothing but screaming, " _What have I done?"_

Hundreds of the creatures they'd been fighting, at least, filled the street where Silver had been. No sign of Silver, either.

As he approached, Sonic braced for the unthinkable. " _Did- did he-"_

A scream, warped by the sound of rushing wind, echoed in Sonic's ears, causing him to swing wide of the herd before screeching to a stop. Surprisingly, while a few broke off to charge him, meaning he only had a few seconds to figure out what was going on at most, the vast majority of them remained still, as if awaiting orders.

The noise, now clear, came again. And if Sonic's hearing was even the slightest bit accurate, it was coming from above.

Then, before anyone could react, something big and white came into sight right as it tumbled off the top of a nearby building. It didn't take long for it to flip around, exposing Silver's terrified hazel eyes as he plummeted towards almost-certain doom.

Sonic, knowing now was the time to try something crazy and stupid, jumped as high as he possibly could in some ill-planned attempt to try and catch Silver. He reasoned that if he did that, he might slow down Silver's fall enough to mitigate the damage he suffered when he landed.

That turned out to not work at all. Turns out, trying to catch a hundred-pound object that had fallen from who-knew-how-far while in midair hurt. A lot. And when he hit the ground, he might have been going slower than Silver would have had he not intervened, but the pain upon landing sent such a sharp burst of agony through Sonic's body that he collapsed upon impact anyway, barely managing to break his fall.

Silver groaned in response. " _Good, at least he's still alive."_

He got Silver off of him before preparing for the inevitable attacks that were to come, but none came. Instead, when Sonic turned to face the mob, he found himself looking directly into the crimson eyes of his biggest rival.

"Shadow?" Sonic tried not to get distracted, considering he was still quite vulnerable here, but with something as impossible as this occurring, that was no easy task. "What are you doing with these things?"

Shadow didn't answer Sonic's question, instead choosing to start monologuing. "I am Shadow the Hedgehog. I don't know who you are, but you are no match for me. Prepare to be exterminated."

Sonic shook his head. "Shadow, buddy, come on. I thought you moved past the 'angsty teen' stage. What's gotten into you?"

Well, one thing Shadow appeared to have lost during the hundred years Sonic skipped was the ability to adequately respond to a conversation, as instead of saying something related or even something unrelated, he instead chose to launch a homing attack directly at Sonic, which he narrowly managed to dodge.

"I guess you're not feeling talkative today," Sonic said after that, darting over to Silver before picking him up like a baby. Without so much as another word, he began a maneuver that most of the time he didn't even consider: a tactical retreat.

The trip, short as it was, didn't treat Silver kindly. Within seconds after starting, Sonic could hear him groaning in pain, causing him to slow down before finally coasting to a stop outside the apartment building Silver had taken him to earlier. Once he set Silver down, though, he gasped, finally understanding the full extent of what had happened to him.

Large chunks of Silver's fur had gone missing, and what was left was so filthy that he was more brown than white. Replacing the fur was nothing but bare skin, which was either burned, blistered, bleeding, or some unholy combination of the three. Silver's formerly white gloves were shredded and covered in blood, and his eyes were leaking silent tears, either from the pain or the trauma of what he'd just been through.

"I'll be back soon," Sonic said. "I've taken care of that faker before, I can do it again."

"I'm sorry, what did you just call me?"

Sonic wasn't too surprised that Shadow had followed them, considering he easily matched Sonic in terms of speed, but Sonic still whirled around upon hearing his voice, again rushing to stand between Shadow and Silver. Shadow's stare bored into him, causing him to cringe although it wasn't terrifying enough to make him freeze. However, Shadow beginning to glow a bloody red did the job just fine, at least for the first few seconds.

"Let me repeat myself," Shadow forced through his snarl. "What. Did. You. Just. Call. Me?"

Sonic tried to downplay his fear, as usual, with some casual banter. "Dude, if you're not going to answer any of my questions, why should I extend that favor to you?"

Shadow's hands both clenched in fists, and he let loose a deep, rumbling growl so vicious it caused the ground to vibrate for a brief second. Then, Shadow's entire body began to glow red as he gained the appearance of perfect concentration. Not wasting a second, Sonic charged Shadow, knowing exactly what was about to happen.

"CHAOS-"

Sonic slammed into him before he could finish speaking, knocking him several dozen feet back and stalling his attack, at least for now. However, now Shadow was somehow more enraged than before (if such a thing was even possible) and while it appeared his inferior knockoffs hadn't inherited all his speed, it probably wouldn't take long before Sonic was drowning in foes. And considering he was already hurting from the punishment he'd been dealt during the first two brawls of the day, if he let them get close to him again chances were he'd be dead.

So, just like usual, all he focused on was speed. Hit Shadow so fast that he wouldn't know where the first attack came from by the time the next one rolled around. Don't ever give him a second to breathe, because the first one will be the last for you.

The first homing attack he launched was a direct hit, but Shadow appeared to have had the same mentality that Sonic did, for not only did it felt like he'd hit a brick wall, he also bounced in an awkward direction, careening around the street like a pinball for a few seconds before coming to a stop, head spinning like crazy. That didn't stop him from trying again, though, which had an identical result as the last time. Despite all that, though, he kept trying, constantly slamming into Shadow and even spouting off a few corny one-liners as he did so in an attempt to alleviate his stress and fear.

BAM. "Jeez, and I thought Knuckles had a hard head."

CRASH. "Next time we do this, I'm wearing a helmet."

CRUNCH. "Hey, are you tired yet?"

The attacks were starting to drain him, and he wasn't sure what was up with Shadow but he looked just as ornery as ever. Things weren't looking good here- if Shadow's near-obliteration of him earlier was any indication, leaving him alone was a bad idea, and his attacks were doing so little that his efforts there were proving fruitless as well.

What was going to happen when he ran out of steam? Or when Shadow's reinforcements arrived? Sonic didn't want to think about that, the repeated barrage from Shadow just barely keeping his mind from venturing to dark places.

Sonic bounced off yet again, preparing for another attempt, but before he did, he noticed Shadow freezing in place for a second before twitching madly, like something inside him was desperately trying to claw its way out. It lasted a few seconds, Sonic staring right at him the whole time, before he shook his head and attacked again.

" _I don't know what that was, but I should probably keep doing what I'm doing,"_ Sonic thought. " _If I can keep him still long enough, I can knock him down and then get Silver out of here before we get overrun."_

Shadow didn't try for a Chaos Blast again, probably because with someone as fast as Sonic, anything that required you to stand still and concentrate for more than a split second was destined to fail. Thus came the second chain of homing attacks and on-the-fly one-liners Sonic churned up (getting worse and worse as he ran out of ideas), not wanting to deviate in any way from the last time.

SMASH. "You think we'd have given up by now."

BANG. "No wonder you attract so many girls like Rouge."

However, Sonic was noticing longer and longer pauses between each attack, and after the last one, Shadow committed himself to another bout of violent twitching. This time, Sonic didn't wait around for him to snap out of it, and smashed another Homing Attack into him. He flew backward about twenty feet or so and collided hard with a crooked streetlight before collapsing to his knees, not getting up.

Even with that, Sonic didn't have long. The horde of clones Shadow had been accompanying was maybe thirty seconds away. He had to put Shadow out of commission and do it now.

It just took a single attack. With a crash, Sonic unleashed one last stupid punch line. "Nice try, Faker."

Shadow gasped loudly once he heard that, shaking his head like crazy even as Sonic moved away. Sonic picked up Silver once more, preparing to retreat a few blocks back to give him some time to rest before the battle recommenced, but before he could start running, Shadow said a single word that changed everything.

"Wait."

Against his better judgement, Sonic obeyed, even as the threat just kept getting closer. Knowing he'd have to book it any second if he wanted to keep either himself or Silver alive, he remained in a position where he could break into a run in an instant, although he stayed still for now.

Shadow pulled himself upright, staring a hole into Sonic as he spoke again. "No one has called me that," he said, "ever since Sonic died. Are you- are you who I think you are?"

"In the flesh," Sonic said, his eyes going wide as saucers as he noticed the mob of enemies was nearby, almost on top of Shadow and maybe a few seconds away from him.

In an instant, Shadow dashed towards them. Sonic, with no time to defend himself, braced for impact.

It never came. Instead, Shadow darted straight past the two of them, yelling, "Then follow me, now!"

Maybe this was a ploy by Shadow, but if it was, he was a far better actor than Sonic had ever given him credit for. Thus, he listened to Shadow once more, darting after Shadow with Silver in his arms, which were starting to ache from holding so much dead weight for so long. Maybe ten blocks or so away from where he started, Shadow came to an instant stop, Sonic following suit right afterward. It didn't give them a lot of time- a minute or so at most- but it was better than what they'd been working with before.

Sonic set Silver down once more to give his arms a break, Silver still not being able to do much more than groan in agony and spit out a few incoherent words. Shadow, however, paid no mind to this, only taking the time to release a very simple message. "I need you to get yourselves as far away as possible."

He darted back towards the group they'd been running from, and Sonic ran away, not knowing what the hell Shadow's plan even was. However, what Shadow shouted next was so loud that it was quite easy to realize what he had in mind.

"CHAOS BLAST!"

For the tiniest frame of time, nothing happened.

Then, a deep, seismic rumble shook the world, launching Sonic off his feet and nearly sending him crashing into the side of a building. Following that came a tremendous blast of pure heat, scalding Sonic's back as he yelped in utter agony. And even with Sonic facing away from the incident, it didn't take much to tell that the area around where Shadow had launched his attack had been surrounded with searing light.

Just as quickly as it started, it stopped. Sonic risked turning around.

Now, Shadow stood alone amidst a sea of corpses, or at least, it looked like Shadow. It wasn't until he rejoined the other two that it became clear he'd survived, not one of his abominable clones.

Sonic had a million questions he would have liked to ask at the time. But before he could get started on any of them, Shadow put a finger to his lips, causing Sonic to quiet down before Shadow spoke once more. "Look, Sonic, I know we didn't exactly start off on the best foot here."

Sonic rolled his eyes. "Oh, really? I always thought the best way to introduce yourself to someone new was to try and kill them."

"You haven't changed a bit," Shadow said. "But I'm going to cut to the chase here. I've got a lot of things I need to get off my chest."

Silver, as weak as he was, attempted to try and interject with a statement of his own. "But… you are… you did… all this..."

"That doesn't matter," Shadow growled, causing Silver to stop talking. "All that matters is what I have to tell you."

Silver and Sonic weren't exactly enraptured, but Shadow's next words stood out to them above everything else, even if that was partially due to the sirens in the background finally, finally shutting off.

"With my help, you'll be able to end all this. Forever."

* * *

**END OF ARC I**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -For organization's sake, I separated the story into four arcs plus an epilogue, and the first arc ends here. Maybe I'll name them later, but I doubt it. If you have any good ideas for names, don't hesitate to PM me!
> 
> -I hope you've enjoyed the story thus far, and I hope to see you again for Arc Two!


	6. Some Things Never Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shadow sheds some light on the whole situation.

When enough of Silver's consciousness returned so that he could comprehend the world around him, he was in so much pain that he almost wished he hadn't.

Even though he could tell he was back in his apartment, slumped in one of the chairs he'd had ever since he'd settled here, that did little to mitigate the pain. It wasn't just unpleasant, either; he'd felt like someone had tried to chop him to pieces with a meat cleaver. The dried blood splattered across his arms and chest didn't do much to help that, as it added waves of nausea on top of the waves of agony.

He heard voices coming from close by. Although his ears weren't at 100% yet, he could tell that one of them was Sonic's. However, he couldn't place the other until he turned his head with a groan, and when he did, he would have jumped up and started running if he'd been even close to the condition he'd need to do that.

Shadow casually leaned against the wall across from Sonic, the two of them acting like Shadow hadn't nearly murdered Silver only hours ago. The atmosphere seemed calm at the moment, but Silver kept his guard up. The last thing he needed right now was to be blindsided.

Sonic was the first to notice that Silver was awake. "Hey, Silver's conscious again. You planning on doing the thing?"

"Just say what it is like a normal person," Shadow responded. "Yes, if he's conscious, I can heal him."

"You can do that now?" Silver tried to remember the things he'd known Shadow for, and healing didn't come up on that list.

"Look, I can explain everything later," Shadow said. "Right now, let's focus on getting three fighters on the playing field in case there's another surprise attack around the corner."

Without another word, Shadow strode over to where Silver was seated, grabbing him by the arms. If he wasn't in so much pain, Silver might have squirmed to try and get away, especially after the burning sensation started. He let out a pitiful cry that stopped a few seconds later once he realized that as the heat increased, everything else diminished by comparison.

It didn't stay for long. In what felt like an instant, Shadow was done, and by then, the agony he'd gone through felt like nothing more than a distant memory.

Silver calmly stood up, feeling better than he had in quite some time. "That's amazing, Shadow. When did you learn that trick?"

"That's going to tie into everything else, so I'll save it for later," Shadow said. "Right now, the best thing I can do is tell you what I know so we can put a stop to all this."

"Well, okay then," Sonic said. "Take it away, Shadow."

Shadow cleared his throat and then started talking once more. "I doubt either of you will be surprised by this, but just like the usual, this is mostly Eggman's fault. All the monsters you've been fighting are his creations. Unfortunately, I played a role in that as well."

Silver felt noticeably sick to his stomach, but noticed that Sonic looked like he was a kid being told a bedtime story, at least for now. Meanwhile, Shadow drew in a long breath, then began."

"About a month before the world went to pieces, Eggman caught me spying on his base to try and catch wind of his new plans before he could act on them. I fought hard and destroyed a lot of his robots, but the bastard hit me with a tranquilizer dart before I could get away. You'd think it'd take more than that to stop the Ultimate Life Form, but you'd also be wrong."

Silver searched his fading memories for anything he had regarding an incident like that, but found nothing. Somehow, the story appeared to have never leaked to the media.

"When I came to, I was strapped to a chair. You know, typical mad scientist stuff. Eggman did a lot of cackling like a banshee and generally sounded just like his usual self at the time. However, he'd accounted for my ace in the hole that time, which was that I'd swallowed a Chaos Emerald about two decades ago to keep it safe during a particularly bad stretch."

Sonic did a double take at that last part. "Wait, which one?"

"The red one," Shadow said. "And as far as I can tell, it's still inside me, since I haven't had to worry about power drain ever since."

"Wow, and I thought chewing gum took forever to digest," Sonic replied. "Continue."

"I'd been locked in a room outfitted with some new technology Eggman created just for me, which continually drained my energy at the rate everything in my body replenished it. This meant that I couldn't teleport out or use any of my Chaos-powered abilities to escape. Furthermore, he kept me restrained at all times, so it wasn't like I could have bolted out when my meals got delivered, either. And I do mean at all times, I was never released. Not to sleep, not to use the bathroom, nope, nothing, nada."

"That must have been horrifying," Silver said, "but how did no one notice you were missing?"

"In case you couldn't tell that about me already, I'm a bit of a recluse," Shadow explained. "Back then, I made statements on my own terms and the media had to work to get anything out of me. Eggman was willing to talk his mouth off to anyone who would listen, but that's not me and it's never been me. Thus, long stretches of silence were normal at the time, although by the time everything ended, they were probably at the point where everyone was starting to get nervous."

"That's definitely true," Silver said. "In the week or so leading up to… this, everyone was really on edge. I remember that."

"Well, now I know," Shadow said, "but back to the subject at hand. What Eggman did to me didn't start off too bad. He collected samples of everything: skin samples, quill samples, blood samples, urine samples, everything. He never told me what he was doing with any of them, but it became clear about a week into my stay. One second, everything was quiet, and the next, some kind of alarm was going off and the lights were flashing like there was no tomorrow."

Sonic looked far more serious than Silver had ever seen him already, but his expression solidified even further once he heard that. "Bad?"

"Very," Shadow confirmed. "I could hear a lot of crashing for a while, but then the cause for alarm broke into my room, and at that point, I thought I knew what was going on."

He took a deep breath here, looking like he needed to spit this next part out now or he'd explode. "The thing looked like me, except it didn't. From what I could tell, the shape was pretty accurate, but the colors didn't match at all. It was only in there for a few seconds and didn't bother with me, so I didn't get a close look at it. All I knew about what happened after that was that the alarm stopped about an hour later, so clearly Eggman managed to catch it before it could escape, if not before it caused damage."

"Hold up," Sonic said, "I think I'm putting together the pieces myself. Was he trying to use you to create… well… _more_ of you?"

"Close enough," Shadow said. "I didn't need to wonder about what his goal was for much longer, because the day after that Eggman came in and explained exactly what he was doing. His plan was to use the samples he'd collected to create an army of creatures just like me; unstoppable super-soldiers with limitless potential. However, he planned to twist their minds to make them all obedient to him. I believe the term he used there was 'built to serve their master.'"

Silver shuddered. "That's… that's just wrong."

"No duh," Sonic replied. "Even for Eggman, that feels a bit over-the-top. What prompted him to try that route?"

"He never explained that to me, but I have some theories," Shadow said. "My guess is that he realized that I unbalanced the playing field quite a bit, and thus, he decided to try and rebalance it in his direction, no matter what it took."

"That seems reasonable," Silver said. "Sounds like nothing more than simple logic. Horrifying, but simple."

"Agreed," Shadow said. "Let's skip ahead a bit here, because the only part left that matters came at the end. I remember Eggman dragging some kind of gadget into my room while smirking like a lunatic. He turned it on and left, and while I had no clue what his goal was, I knew it couldn't be anything good, since it was showing about a dozen different news programs side by side."

"I'm assuming he wanted a captive audience for the massacre he unleashed," Silver said.

"Makes sense," Shadow said. "They all cut to the disaster at almost the exact same time, and none of the footage they had to show was pretty. In at least two of the programs, their reporters were killed while the cameras were still running. There was another one where one of the clones took a camera and brought it with him, which showed all kinds of blood and murder until the camera mercifully broke." Shadow began to tremble a bit, probably not taking too well to having to relive that part of his life again. "There was a lot more, but I think you get the picture."

"I was _in_ that picture," Silver said. "Of course I get it."

"Most of what I said there was for Sonic's benefit," Shadow said. "I'm not even sure how you're here, since by all accounts you should have been dead decades ago. However, we'll have to figure that mystery out later."

"I'm as clueless as you are on that, so the sooner we get to that, the better," Sonic said.

"We'll get to it when we get to it," Shadow said. "Now, let's get to the big reveal. Everything I said before was just for context, this is the important part. Eggman is still making more of these things using factories he either built or repurposed. Each of them needs a Chaos Emerald to run, so that means there can be a maximum of six in existence. If we can destroy the factories and take their Chaos Emeralds, Eggman won't have any way to make more soldiers and we'll be able to end this."

Silver finally cracked a smile. "Pinch me, I must be dreaming."

Sonic promptly complied, causing Silver to yelp with surprise before half-heartedly swatting at him. "Did you have to take that literally?"

"Not really," Sonic said. "I did anyway."

"Let's move on from that," Shadow said. "So, now that I've told you everything you need to know, Sonic, it's your turn to spill. Why are you here?"

"Again, I don't know," Sonic said. "Tails had made a new invention for me that allowed me to go even faster than my usual top speed with the help of a Chaos Emerald, and I volunteered to test it for him. I remember starting to run, but everything that happened after that was a blur. Next thing I knew, I was waking up in a field and everything hurt."

Shadow gained a look of intense concentration for about fifteen seconds, but then Silver could almost see the lightbulb that went off in his head. "Well, why couldn't you tell me that at the beginning? Now it makes perfect sense."

Sonic shook his head. "Wait, how?"

"I know I just dumped a history lesson on you, but I've got to give you another one now," Shadow said. "About twenty years ago, a fairly unknown company ran an experiment with a drone-like device a group of top scientists had invented known by the codename Whirlwind. Whirlwind was known for two things; one being its top speed of nearly Mach 6, and the other being its size, roughly a quarter of that of a standard drone. Naturally, as soon as the company was cleared to run tests on it, the first thing it did was test out its top speed. To say the least, it didn't go well."

Now Silver was confused. "Wait, I don't remember seeing that. What happened?"

"A plane came out of seemingly nowhere and Whirlwind crashed into it, and at that point, the camera filming the test broke and the video was nothing but static. Furthermore, attempts to find it so that they could fix it for a second test was unsuccessful, and after that incident no one was willing to fund a new one. The video was studied frame by frame to try and figure out what happened, and while nobody was able to come to a conclusion on how it happened, we know what did. One frame, the space in front of Whirlwind is clear, the next, there's a plane there." Shadow took a deep breath, sounding like he'd been talking as fast as possible through this part.

"I had no idea about any of that," Silver said. "I know it happened before I was born, but how did nothing about it make it online or something?"

"The government worked to erase any evidence of it from the world's collective memory as much as possible," Shadow said. "After the initial burst of publicity from the video, all copies of it were taken down and destroyed, at least as far as I knew, and over time, so few remembered the existence of it that the implications of the video were never considered. But I remember. So I know how to use that now."

He paused for a second here, probably for dramatic effect, and then continued. "My personal belief is that Whirlwind focused so much energy on such a small space that it punched a hole in the space-time continuum. That explains the appearance of the plane that hadn't existed before and why the device was never found. For all we know, it could have been sent five years ahead of time or five years earlier, but we'll probably never know that."

"You're starting to sound like Tails," Sonic said. "So you're saying I broke the laws of time and space somehow? Okay, but then why did I get sent here, of all places?"

"As stupid as that sounds, that was probably nothing more than pure chance," Shadow said. "And even if it wasn't, I'd have no idea why you were sent to this specific time and place as opposed to anywhere else on the continuum. Very few, if any, public studies have ever been run on the space-time continuum, because many a brilliant man has driven himself to an early grave trying to wrap his head around how it works or why it's there. Most just understand that it exists and move on, very few seek answers any more complex than that."

"Don't worry too much about it, then," Sonic said. "At least I know how I got here now. I'm sticking around, because I want to see this to a conclusion, but at least I have a gridwork as to how I'm supposed to get back home."

Silver stood up, making a motion for the window. "What are we waiting for? Where's the closest monster factory, Shadow?"

"It's in a city a few hundred miles to the east from here," Shadow said, "and I'll know it when I see it. Come on, let's get whatever we need and go. I want to put a stop to this just as much as you do."

So, the three of them packed everything they felt like they'd need- food, fresh water, a box of matches, the remnants of a first-aid kit. Silver didn't have any bags to pack everything in, so they had to search some of the empty apartments for something they could use. Even with that, they only found two, so Silver had to improvise further by taking one of his unused cabinets off the wall and converting it into a storage container. Furthermore, everyone agreed to take turns carrying that. (Sure, Silver could simply make it float over him, but when he ventured that idea, Shadow rejected it, saying they didn't want him to expend any more energy than necessary.)

They needed no further prompting, all of them charging for the open window and leaping out, landing just as gracefully as the last time. In what felt like seconds, they'd cleared the city limits, leaving dust in their wake.

For Silver, this whole idea was new, but for the others, it was so commonplace that it felt like just another day.

It was time to take down Eggman's operation.


	7. Descent into Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following Shadow's memories, the trio searches for the first of Eggman's factories.

Sonic quickly figured out that while Silver's top speed was nowhere near his or Shadow's, he could still be pretty fast if he wanted to be.

Thankfully, that meant the trip to where Shadow remembered the factory being wouldn't be too lengthy. Silver didn't take long to reach the highest speed he felt could maintain, with Sonic and Shadow sticking by his side the entire time.

Along the way, they passed by other ruined cities, these ones showing even fewer signs of life than Silver's had. Furthermore, their damage was even worse: fallen buildings, streets and sidewalks still stained with dried blood, weeds beginning to grow over everything. Each time they saw one, they passed through, both to check and see if this one also held a factory or if there were any survivors. And each time, they were disappointed on both fronts.

Once the sun had fully gone down, they stopped, if only briefly, for a bite to eat. Three hours after that, they stopped to take a power nap, which Sonic felt barely had done anything. Now, the sun was rising, and Sonic was starting to suspect that the location Shadow had been talking about was nothing more than a fantasy, some half-memory he'd retained from his time in Eggman's clutches.

But then, they began to hear a bell ringing, and Shadow came to a hard stop, nearly sending Sonic and Silver tumbling.

"I remember this," Shadow said. "I heard that bell when I was exiting the factory. Come on, this next one has to be it."

"It better be," Sonic said under his breath as he sped up once more.

However, it sure didn't look the part. This city, if anything, was in even worse condition than all the others they'd seen so far. Buildings had collapsed in the streets, forming piles of material that would be quite unpleasant to cross barefoot. All of the closest streetlights were bent and looked like they'd join the buildings they were meant to light up any second. Of the ones remaining intact, none of them had any obvious signs that they were inhabited, and furthermore, there weren't even any buildings that looked like it could handle the demands of a factory like the one Shadow described.

"Shadow," Sonic said, "you sure you're remembering this right?"

"Positive," Shadow said. "It's close. I don't know how close, but it's close."

"Wait," Silver said before they could get any further. "If you'd been brainwashed into working for Eggman earlier, and you can correct me if that's wrong, how do we know he didn't tamper with your memories so that we'd be led straight into a trap?"

"It wouldn't be the first time," Sonic added.

Shadow groaned. "Do you want to at least have a chance to end this or not?"

Sonic would have made some snarky remark there, but he was stopped by the sight of three Shadow clones appearing from around a corner. The instant he spotted them, he pointed them out to Shadow and Silver, who quickly got into attack mode.

Thankfully, these things were pretty easy to take down one on one, at least for the three of them. Once more, they didn't kill them, but they wouldn't be attacking anyone else anytime soon.

"Wait," Shadow said the instant they were done. "What direction were they coming from?"

"I think down that street," Sonic said, pointing to the street on the right, about a block away. He saw Silver nod to confirm that.

"If we go the direction they came from, we can find out where the factory entrance is that way," Shadow said. "Let's go, and keep an eye out for any more."

The three of them turned the corner, slowly walking about a block before a group of five or six more came from another street, this one on the left. Once more, they were quickly dispatched, with the three of them turning a corner once more.

The clusters of enemies were starting to get thicker and thicker, implying that the entrance was getting closer. Once the groups started to become unmanageable, Sonic pulled up close to the others and whispered, "Guys, I don't know about you, but I think attacking everything we come across is a bad idea. Let's try avoiding them if possible from now on."

Shadow and Silver nodded assent. Silver even said, "I'll scout ahead, I can fly. Once I find the entrance, I'll come back and we can rush it."

Shadow objected to that almost instantly. "That's a really risky plan. What's stopping them from just following you and not giving you a place to land? Furthermore, that'll just allow monsters to track where we are."

"Never mind, then." Silver gave up the ghost on that plan, and the three of them slipped forward, dodging out of sight of the groups, which was pretty hard. Even if the clones weren't inclined to look into buildings (which the trio made frequent use of), they still were looking in all directions at once, meaning if they got even close to one of them, they'd get the whole cluster set on them. And once that happened, chances were another cluster would be attracted to all the commotion. That'd lead to a vicious cycle with no easy way to end it, which absolutely none of them wanted.

After what felt like an eternity, they managed to locate what appeared to be the entrance, even if it wasn't anywhere near what they expected. Instead of an abandoned complex, store, apartment building, or even a house, the entrance appeared to be nothing more than a manhole with no cover. On occasion, several new clones would pop out, each group moving away in a seemingly arbitrary direction before the next group followed. Besides the clones, there wasn't anything notable about the area: no significant landmarks, no places to hide or convene- the road wasn't even a main street, for crying out loud.

"Well, there it is," Sonic whispered. "But how are we supposed to get down there?"

"I'm guessing that the manhole leads to the sewer system," Silver said, "just because that's how it used to work back where I lived. The sewer systems in a city are all interconnected, so we shouldn't have to use that specific entrance, we can just find another manhole that's reasonably close and enter through there. Only problem is that chances are it's going to be dark down there, and my night vision isn't the best."

Shadow smiled a little, appearing to be at ease now that his hunch had been confirmed. "Let's go, then. There has to be a million manholes in this city, we can find one more."

The three of them dashed off, careful not to alert any of the monsters that just kept coming. Once the crowd had thinned out, Sonic darted over to the sidewalk of what actually appeared to be a main road, pointing out another manhole that happened to be slightly ajar.

"Hey, guys," Sonic said, "I found an easy one to get into."

"If it's easy, it's probably a trap," Shadow said. "Let's find another one."

Sonic grumbled under his breath, but accepted that Shadow was probably right about that one.

The next fifteen minutes focused on nothing but finding an entry point Shadow approved of. They kept getting further and further away, with Shadow dissatisfied with every point they found. Not until they were nearing the city limits did Shadow look at one and say, "This one looks good."

"Okay," Silver said, "why here in particular?"

"It's far enough away that they'll never see us coming, but it's close enough we'll be able to find our way back without much trouble," Shadow said. "Plus, this one's not opened at all. That means that it was probably never used as an exit."

"Let's go, then," Sonic said. He initially was going to look for a stick to pry the manhole open, but Silver made that unnecessary by lifting the cover for them, dropping it in a cluster of scraggly weeds that were poking through the pavement. Then, the three of them slipped into the hole left behind as quietly as possible, first Sonic, then Shadow, then Silver.

While the sewer system had clearly been out of use for quite some time, it still bore a resemblance to those Sonic was used to, at least in the brief periods he'd seen one. For starters, it literally smelled like crap, amongst other things Sonic couldn't identify and really didn't want to. Beneath them and slightly to their left was a river of stagnant water, a brownish-green from filth and full of floating debris. The walls were mostly spared, but a few tiny plants were beginning to peek out of the walls in the places the light reached, and graffiti from who knew how long ago made its presence clear with its neon colors. One of them was a mural that actually looked kind of cool, but the rest was nothing more than symbols of a bygone era and crude sayings. (Funnily enough, one of those sayings told Shadow to do something both physically impossible and quite disgusting.)

Even if the lack of light made it hard to see, Shadow putting his finger to his lips was still quite visible. "We need to be quiet here. The goal is to keep from being detected for as long as possible."

Sonic nodded assent, and Silver appeared to do the same. With that, they began to slink back in the direction they'd come from.

Surprisingly, the sewers seemed to be empty. Not a single creature or even a single sign of movement outside of the three of them made itself clear for the first stretch, which initially just had them backtracking, then following the noise of a thousand footsteps as it grew louder and louder.

This phase ended as Shadow stuck his hand out, stopping Sonic and Silver from making their way around a sharp corner.

"They're all coming from the side of the junction currently parallel to us on the left side," Shadow whispered. "We can wait a few minutes to see if the flow thins out at all, but I don't think there's a way to get any further without being spotted. It's going to get rough from here on out, be prepared."

They did as Shadow suggested and waited a few minutes, but if anything, the rate of creatures exiting increased while they sat there. Thus, the three of them set down just about everything they were carrying as quietly as possible (if they had made noise, they couldn't hear it over the sound of monsters climbing out of the sewer) and prepared to rush the entrance.

Even in the dim light, Sonic could see Shadow holding up fingers, counting _five, four, three, two-_

Before he got to one, Silver burst out from behind the corner, Sonic and Shadow leaping into action behind him. The closest opponents were stunned for just long enough for the trio to take them down easily before bolting into a corridor jammed with bodies. The creatures nearest to them didn't have time to attack before they bolted out of range, but the ones at the back had plenty of time to prepare, and unfortunately, they didn't waste it.

Sonic felt about half a dozen Shadow knock-offs slam into him at once, stopping him dead in his tracks. Based on the two grunts he heard nearby, Shadow and Silver had been subject to something similar. Several vicious lances of pain shot through him, but he still popped back to his feet just fine. Shadow and Silver did the same, with Silver flinging his arms out to knock his closest opponents back. This caused a domino effect, with the creatures in front crashing into the ones behind them almost all the way to the back, allowing Sonic to shoot right past.

Wanting to save his energy as much as possible, he stopped, although he waited for Shadow and Silver to catch up, which they did in a hurry, although they had what was probably several hundred angry Shadow knock-offs on their tails. Before they got too far, though, Sonic shouted something unintelligible before screeching to a stop and windmilling his arms to keep balance.

Now, Sonic was staring into what might as well have been an abyss. The drop was too far down to risk jumping, and the only way down appeared to be a single rickety-looking ladder swarmed with clones, which the possibility of being able to use all the way to the bottom was near zero. The passage framing that drop was almost certainly Eggman's work, as it looked too hastily-made and uneven to be a proper extension to the sewer, and it wasn't like the tunnel even connected to anything.

"We've got ten seconds, maybe," Shadow said. "Any ideas?"

"Wait," Silver said. "I can-"

He never finished the sentence, instead having a creature crash into him and send him tumbling into the abyss. With a cry, Sonic jumped in after him.

Suddenly, the feeling stopped, and Sonic found himself encased in the same teal glow that had been his introduction to Silver, albeit in a less binding manner. He was even able to look up and see that the real Shadow had been subject to the same treatment, clones plummeting past them as they descended.

"That was too close," Shadow said.

Silver didn't say anything back, merely nodding with a strained expression. Clearly, defying the law of gravity was much harder than merely knocking things down.

Unfortunately, the area they were going to land in was so packed with enemies that they couldn't even see it. Sure, the trio had the advantage of not being lined up shoulder-to-shoulder, but that was about it. However, as Silver stopped them about fifteen feet up, his straining looking worse by the second, Sonic had an idea.

"Silver," he said, "just drop us."

Silver probably would have shaken his head if he wasn't concentrating so hard on keeping the three of them floating. "Wait… why?"

"We'll knock them all down, then we can keep going," Sonic said. "Do it."

Silver obeyed. In what felt like an instant, the force keeping them aloft disappeared, sending the three of them dropping the rest of the way. Sonic curled up into a Spin Dash as he did, crashing almost directly on top of an enemy with a loud crunching noise. Two near-identical sounds following implied that Shadow and Silver had done the same. Before anyone, including his allies, could react, Sonic saw where the hall led and bolted down it.

In what felt like a second, he was no longer in a crowded space, instead in a much more open area. However, this one, if he ever escaped it, was going to haunt Sonic's dreams for the rest of his life.

This was clearly the factory Shadow had remembered, as evidenced by the glowing blue Chaos Emerald screwed into the ceiling casting a faint light across the room and occasionally flaring up. But what the light showed almost made Sonic wish the room was pitch-black.

A dozen machines, six on each side, dominated the room, each one about the size of a backyard shed. While each one was mostly made of gleaming steel, a section in the front was made of glass so he could see what was going on inside. In the few brief seconds he was able to watch one, a blob of fleshy, pulsating material swelled into a Shadow clone, albeit one with enough disfigurements that it was still easily recognizable. Then, the machine opened and expelled the monster, with more material being slopped into its place to repeat the process again.

The new creature saw Sonic, blinked a couple of times, and then charged him, which Sonic dodged. All around him, all the other new arrivals did the same.

Shadow screamed, "we need the Chaos Emerald to shut this down! Someone get up there!"

" _Well, duh,"_ Sonic thought, even as he ducked and wove around a dozen attacks at once, even as Silver and Shadow did the same. However, more and more bodies just kept piling into the room, stuffing it to maximum capacity.

And before anyone could react, Sonic was swallowed up by a sea of foes, with no way out but to go through.


End file.
